


Into the Dark

by bergamot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/M, Future Fic, On Hiatus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8136983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bergamot/pseuds/bergamot
Summary: Jaime follows Brienne into the woods.





	1. Pennytree

**Author's Note:**

> Happy JB week, everyone! 
> 
> This story will be updated three times over the course of the week. You can expect to see chapters for Honor, Reluctance, and Betrayal. This is a WiP and will continue from there.
> 
> Enjoy :)

They rode out at first light, Brienne on her wild-eyed bay and Jaime on a sleek grey Palfrey he called Honor. The Lannister camp was still asleep, and Jaime urged her to step carefully lest she wake the men and they take her for a morning treat. Brienne was too tired to blush, too tired to chastise his teasing words. She rode on in silence, Jaime following close behind and alert.

She did not have a plan. Seven help her, but she did not have a plan. She had fled the Brotherhood Without Banners in the light of early morning, her hands shaking. The wound on her cheek throbbed in time to the canter of her horse. Any faster, and she would jostle her arm in sharp agony.

Brienne had run a thousand different scenarios through her mind on her way to the Lannister camp. Each one ended in death—her death, Podrick’s death, Ser Hyle’s death. Worst of all were the scenarios that ended in Jaime’s death, and these far outnumbered the rest. She was a fool to come for him, and he a fool to trust her enough to follow.

Brienne gripped the reins in her hands until the worn leather creaked. Her horse huffed and threw its head. The woods outside Pennytree were quiet and peaceful; she had hardly noticed them the night before, desperate as she was to find Jaime.

The morning was crisp and cold, a winter chill on the air. She watched her breath puff in clouds before her face and wondered if her fever still lingered. She stopped herself from raising her hand to her injured cheek; she did not wish to draw Jaime’s attention to it. In truth, she did not wish to draw his attention at all. 

_My lady_ , he had called her at Pennytree. My lady.  

She had felt half a corpse riding into the Lannister camp. Jaime was surprised to see her, but not displeased. He asked after her injuries with some concern and looked at her as if she were a ghost, but Brienne did not want to elaborate for fear he would refuse her request. She told her lie and watched his eyes widen in triumph. For a brief moment, she believed he would ride away with her right then. Instead, he gestured to her cheek.

 “You need a maester, my lady,” he said. “You are not fit to ride out tonight—nor, I suspect, is your mount.”

Brienne had not the strength to protest the squire who came to collect her reins. Jaime dismissed the two scouts and led their remaining party to a house on the edge of the square. She kept her head down so the men in the camp would not see her face so well as to recognize her. The scarf she wore about her head itched fearsomely, but she dared not lift it away. The welt from the hangman’s noose was still tender.

Jaime took the reins from the squire. “Peck, go find a maester. Tell him to come at once.” The squire turned to run off, but Jaime glanced up at Brienne and called him back. “Find Pia, as well. Have her bring water for a bath and a change of man’s clothing.”

Peck nodded and hurried away. Jaime turned to Brienne and made to grab her elbow to help her dismount. She drew back, but before she could stop him, Jaime reached up and grasped her hand instead. She cried out, pain lancing up her arm and making the world sway around her. Black spots danced along the edges of her vision.

Jaime’s mouth was a hard line. “A broken arm, too, it seems. What else shall we discover when we get you down from that thrice-damned horse?”

He left her to the machinations of a maester and the girl called Pia. They led her inside the house and stripped her to her breeches and tunic. The Brotherhood had kept her blue plate armor and sent her out in boiled leather. Brienne was dismayed to see that Pia’s front teeth were jagged and broken in the light from the hearth. Pia held her hand in front of her mouth when she asked Brienne to strip and step into the bath.

The maester stepped out to speak with Jaime, to report on her cheek, her broken arm, the bruising around her neck, and three cracked ribs. Brienne thought to swear the maester to silence, but Jaime would force the truth from him anyway.

“My lady, your bath,” said Pia from behind her hand.

Brienne reached for her shirt, but the girl was there first, lifting it gingerly away from Brienne’s battered body. The cloth stuck to her skin in places, and Brienne winced as Pia pried the fabric away. She had let the maester poke and prod at her biggest wounds, but she was still covered in a myriad of tiny scrapes and cuts. Pia tutted softly at the worst of them and helped Brienne over to the tub.

“May I asked what happened to your mouth?” Brienne asked quietly. She knew the humiliation of calling attention to one’s flaws, but she needed to know who had done such a thing.

Pia blushed, but her look was fierce. “I was at Harrenhal,” she said. “Men weren’t too gentle there. Not until Ser and his men put a stop to it.”

Brienne hissed as she lowered herself into the tub, the water stinging her cuts like a swarm of angry bees. She nodded her head at Pia’s look of concern, her chest swelling absurdly at the thought of Jaime rescuing the girl and taking her into his service. 

“The Lannister men don’t bother me none now,” Pia continued, “though I quite like the look of a few of them.”

She winked, and Brienne looked down. She focused on the warm water and the feeling of dirt and grime washing away. Pia cupped water in her hands and let it fall over Brienne’s matted hair. Brienne tried not to gasp in pain as it made its way into the wound on her cheek.

“Does it hurt bad, my lady?” Pia asked. “Your cheek, I mean.”

Brienne nodded and started to scrub at her arms and legs. Pia made to rinse her hair again and Brienne steeled herself for the pain.

“How did it happen?”

Brienne stilled. She could not refuse to answer a question she herself had just asked. The image of Biter came roaring into her mind, and Brienne closed her eyes against the memory of his pale flesh and gnashing teeth.

“An animal,” she said. “While I was on the road.”

Pia clucked her tongue in sympathy again, but she did not ask more. Brienne was thankful for her silence.

She was half-asleep on the small trundle bed in the corner of the house by the time she heard the door open and Jaime stepped in. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. They had exchanged only a handful of words outside the house, and she was afraid he would wake her and demand the rest of her story. Instead, she felt the whisper of his breath as he dropped down on his haunches next to her head. 

Brienne held her breath and waited, but he did not speak.

There was the barest touch to her brow, so light she might have been dreaming, and then he was gone.


	2. Bite Your Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guilt weighs heavy on Brienne's shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for JB Week, Day 4: Reluctance.

They traveled in silence until midmorning. Brienne kept her eyes on the trees, searching for signs of the Brotherhood. Jaime rode several paces behind her, avoiding the mud and slush kicked up by her horse’s hooves. It had snowed the night before, only a dusting, but at least it would make it easier to spot anyone waiting to ambush them. 

Jaime huffed behind her, sounding like a great warhorse preparing for battle. He’d kept his thoughts to himself for most of the morning. Brienne knew he had little patience, and her silence could only be a burr in his side. But she could not tell her lie again, and she could not tell him the truth, either.

She pressed her lips together and edged her mount into a faster gait. The maester had set her arm the night before and double-checked the wound on her cheek this morning. There was still pain, but it was little more than a dull ache.

Jaime kicked his horse and came up beside her. He stared at her, assessing her in that way that made his green eyes flash.

“I gave you the grandest horse in the seven kingdoms,” he japed, “and here you are astride a half-starved beast.” Brienne winced at the word, but Jaime ignored it. “See if I ever trust you with such a prize again, wench. Dare I even ask after the sword and armor?”

_Wench._ Brienne was surprised to feel pleasure bloom in her chest at the word. There had been a time when she was certain she would never hear it again. She cleared her throat and looked over at Jaime. He watched her expectantly.

Oathkeeper was still strapped to her hip. Lady Stoneheart had allowed her that much, at least. Brienne suspected the lady took pleasure in the idea that the Kingslayer might be slain with Lord Stark’s famous blade, or what was left of it. Brienne brushed the hilt with her hand, and Jaime’s eyes flickered to catch the movement.

“Well,” he said, his voice quieter now. “I suppose that is something.”

They rode on in silence. Brienne expected Jaime to fall back once more, but he did not. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her. Her cheeks heated; she prayed to the Mother and the Warrior and the Maiden to let her blood go down.

“Tell me, Brienne,” said Jaime finally, his tone deceptively light, “where have your travels taken you?”

She could not answer him. Her tongue felt swollen and unfamiliar in her mouth. Unbidden, a memory of crying into the Elder Brother’s shoulder rose in Brienne’s mind. She had cried over many things on the Quiet Isle, but none more so than Jaime Lannister.

He was waiting for her to explain herself, she knew—to tell him of her plan for defeating the Hound and rescuing Sansa Stark. The plan Brienne did not have. She swallowed thickly.

She tried not to think of Hyle and Pod hanging in the trees beside her. Pod’s face had been near blue when they’d finally pulled him down. He wept with relief when they cut the rope from his neck and then in terror as they used it to bind his hands once more. Brienne had pleaded with Lady Stoneheart, begged her to let Pod go.

“An innocent, my lady,” she cried. “He is just a boy!”

“A murderer,” Lady Stoneheart rasped. “Loyal to Lannister gold.”

“No,” Brienne had howled. “Just a boy! Like your own boys!”

“My boys are dead,” said the lady, and one of the men dragged Pod, screaming, back into the cave.

“My lady?”

Brienne looked over to see Jaime watching her, worry writ plain on his face. She had thought him half a god once, but now, in his mail and his crimson Lannister trappings, his gold hair swept back from his face and his shining beard trimmed, he looked full god. The Warrior incarnate. Jaime regarded her with an expression that hovered between amusement and concern. That such a man should care for her, even just a little bit, made Brienne’s chest ache.

_Kingslayer’s Whore_.

She remembered the Brotherhood’s words, the sound of their laughter as she came in and out of her fevered nightmares. Her cheeks flamed again. She could no more belong to Jaime Lannister than the sun could rise in the west. Not for all the gold or glory in the world.

Jaime slowed his palfrey and came in close to her bay. He reached out with his good hand and captured her reins.

He had packed his heavy gold hand in a saddle bag and now wore his sleeve over his stump. Brienne had wanted so badly to question him about it; to ask if it still caused him pain. If he practiced his sword work with his left now. If he could fight. The loss of his hand had changed Jaime, but so had the days and months since they’d been parted in King’s Landing. He was a knight again, a commander. A leader of men.

Jaime drew her to a halt beside him. Winding her reins around his stump, he raised his good hand to cup her ruined cheek. His fingers were so cold.

He searched her face, as if would find the truth in her eyes. Perhaps he would.

“What has happened to you, wench?”

Brienne could have wept at the softness in his voice. Instead, she whispered, “No more than I deserved, ser.”

Jaime searched her face for a moment longer, then set his mouth in a hard line and released her. He dropped her reins and kicked his horse forward again.

He would not question her further, then. Brienne wondered if he had that much faith in her, or if he already suspected the truth of her ruse. What kind of man would be willing ride knowingly to his doom? What man would enter the wolf’s den without so much as a protest? Brienne did not have to think long on that—the answer rode in front of her.

Ser Jaime Lannister had ridden to his death many times before—he was knight and this was war. He’d returned to Harrenhal only to jump into a bear pit to save her. He’d faced Ned Stark on the Iron Throne, his sword still dripping with the Mad King’s blood. He was the Kingslayer and gods knew what else. He broke his oaths and fathered children with his sister.

Despite it all, he was an honorable man, perhaps one of the last in the Seven Kingdoms. 

Brienne bit her lip and watched the breeze pick up Jaime’s cloak and toss it back off his powerful shoulders. Never had Brienne felt so sure that it was her duty—sworn to no one but herself—that Jaime must not die. Not by her sword, not by those of the Brotherhood.

She reined in her horse, kicking up muck on the track. Jaime rode on for several paces until he realized she had stopped. He turned is mount around and came toward her, his expression wary.

“What is this, Brienne?”

She felt the worry in his words. _He trusts you_ , she thought, _and he does not_.

Brienne took a breath, her hands twisting in her reins. Her stomach dropped like a stone from the edge of a cliff. She could not meet his eyes. She searched the bare trees that surrounded them. The forest was quiet and still, but trees had eyes. Were the Brotherhood watching them now? Would they stop her?

“Ser,” she said, “I have betrayed you.”


	3. The Weight of Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime leaves Brienne to ride back to the Lannister camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for JB Week, Day 5: Betrayal 
> 
> Better late than never!

Jaime left Brienne standing beside the road with tears streaming down her face. He ignored the whimpering sounds she made and guided Honor back the way they’d came, toward the Lannister camp and his duties there. He cared little for the sweat on Honor’s neck or the froth at his mouth; the road was slick with mud and it coated Jaime’s boots and cloak as he rode.

It was fury that pumped through his veins, hot and coarse, and betrayal that itched beneath his skin and drove him on. Her words echoed in his ears with the pounding of Honor’s hooves, her apologies like biting gnats. 

“She lives,” Brienne had sobbed, her hand twisting in Jaime’s blood red cloak. “But she is not the lady I once served. She is something else, twisted.”

But that hadn’t stopped Brienne, stupid, stubborn cow that she was from giving the woman yet another oath. He wondered if the girl had made any effort to resist before the damnable words tripped from her thick tongue and across her chapped lips. Jaime doubted it.

The Brotherhood Without Banners sought his head now; Lady Stoneheart waited somewhere in these cursed woods for him. He’d already heard reports along the road—Frey and Lannister men strung up and left to bloat and rot in the weak winter sun. Did she guide the pack of wolves that dogged the edges of the Lannister camp, as well? Had she ordered her men to kill Jaime on sight, or would she choose to draw his death out?

He’d seen well enough what Lady Stoneheart was capable of—had seen the evidence, even, around Brienne’s thick neck. The burn of a noose, the maester had reported, three ribs broken, and her cheek— _her cheek_. Jaime did not like to think about that. Brienne had said it was an animal that had given her that wound, but the maester argued it was the jaws of a man.

“An animal rips, aye,” said the maester, mimicking the movement with his hands, “as a man rips at meat, but a man’s teeth are shaped differently. This wound bears the mark of a man, my Lord. The girl is lucky that it was tended early and the infection never festered, for a man’s mouth is full of evils.”

As well Jaime knew. The words he had flung at Brienne had been sharp as any blade, and he had done his best to cut her down with them. He called her fool and a liar, an oath breaker and a king slayer. He’d called her many things that he wished he could take back.

He’d called himself a fool, too, because he was. The way he’d jumped at the sight of her when she’d ridden into Pennytree… the way he’d watched her sleep. He should have seen that she was trying to hide something from him, but he’d been too blinded by the flashing blue of her eyes, by the taciturn silence he’d grown so used to on the road to King’s Landing. He had missed her, gods be good, in a way he hadn’t realized until she’d appeared in the middle of his camp.

Jaime urged Honor faster, his cloak tangling around his neck. He thought of that night long ago in the Whispering Wood and the Stark banner men howling from between the trees. The terror when he’d finally realized his mistake.

_And here you again. Stupid man, to follow such a woman into the woods without a second guess. You should have known she would place her honor before your own._

But it was not only Brienne’s betrayal or the danger that she had tricked him into that ate at Jaime’s mind. It was the bruise at her neck and the filthy bandage on her cheek.

_What has happened to you, wench?_

He had sent Brienne on her quest without so much as a squire—though it appeared she had amended that—and nothing to recommend her but a seal from a child king. She wore his sword at her hip, but what protection had that really been? _This wound bears the mark of a man._

What man would rip into a woman’s face? What mistress would string up a child?  What man would send her back into the den of wolves a second time?

 _The kind of man who rides back for camp._ The thought was bitter against his tongue.

Jaime pulled hard on Honor’s reins, and the horse whinnied in aggravation. Hooves dug into the sodden earth, and Jaime lifted in his saddle, steadying himself with the grip of his thighs. Honor stomped and threw his head while Jaime tried to sooth him. It would not do to be thrown from his horse now. He tugged on Honor’s reins again and pulled him about-face. 

Camp was a long way off still. Half a day's ride, at least. There were wolves in the Riverlands, and other foul things, and it would be dark long before Jaime could reach his men. He would not have Honor torn to shreds by a pack of wolves. Nor, he allowed, Brienne.

The light had grown dim in the time it had taken him to finally stop, heavy grey clouds crouching like an old beggar over the land. The air was cold and damp and it smelled like snow. They would need shelter from the gathering storm, a place to rest and build strength before they faced the Brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart. Brienne was injured, though it would be like pulling teeth to get her to acquiesce to any sort of delay, the stubborn mule.

He’d heard enough of Podrick and the hedge knight Hyle Hunt to know that they were likely dead by now, if not by Lady Stoneheart’s impatience than by the myriad of injuries that had festered in Brienne’s absence. She would be broken to find her loyal squire gone, and Jaime ached for her, thinking of his own fondness for Peck. 

It was not enough to endear Brienne to him again, however; Jaime would not be so quick to forgive or forget. Her betrayal was a hot coal burning in his belly. But he could not ignore the things he’d done for those he loved, and the oaths he’d broken to keep them safe. It was enough to spur Honor back into a gallop, this time Jaime’s good hand a reassurance against his mount’s frothy neck.

He followed the furrows in the road from their earlier journey and his more recent flight to a clearing in the woods. The trees were quiet, and there was no sign of Brienne or her horse. Jaime drew up on his reins and paused. He searched the tree line for the sign of a fire and the ground for sign of Brienne’s mount. There, the shoe of her bay as she’d stopped mid-step. And there, the heel of Brienne’s boot as she’d stepped down to deliver her confession.

Jaime swung out of his saddle and inspected the tracks on the side of the road. The clearing was a mess of dried yellow grass, mud and ice. It was trampled to slurry along the edge of the road, but after moment he found where his own steps met with Brienne’s in a frustrated dance. He’d left her there, sobbing into her hands, his boot print heavy with her words, her blue eyes sinking pits. And there—another print. Another boot. And another pair of horseshoes to join them.

Jaime straightened and looked around, but the woods were still as death and just as silent. It pricked at the nerves in his spine to be exposed this way. He felt naked and flayed with fear.

Where was Brienne?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: This work is on hiatus for the time being, as I have other multi-chapter pieces in the works. I will likely come back to it again, but it will take awhile. Thank you for reading!


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